


The Win

by cenotaphy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alleyway Reunion, Angst, Angst and Feels, Cas communicates, Castiel is Loved, Castiel thinking he is a screwup, Coda, Communication, Dean communicates, Destiel if you squint - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Dean, Episode: s13e05 Advanced Thanatology, Feels, Gen, Hugs, Impala, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Dean, Post-Episode: s13e05 Advanced Thanatology, Reunions, Sam communicates, Sam has a lot of feelings, everyone communicates!, like lots and lots, lots of sleeve holding, so many hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 13:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12682929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphy/pseuds/cenotaphy
Summary: For what feels like a long time, Dean can't move. He just stands, stock-still, staring at Cas. The alley is wet and smelly and lit by the streetlamps and garish neon signage around them, and Dean stands in the middle of it and looks at Cas and tries to remember how to breathe.





	The Win

**Author's Note:**

> A hasty coda to S13E05: Advanced Thanatology.

For what feels like a long time, Dean can't move. He just stands, stock-still, staring at Cas. The alley is wet and smelly and lit by the streetlamps and garish neon signage around them, and Dean stands in the middle of it and looks at Cas and tries to remember how to breathe.

("Don't hang up," Cas had said, after the first gravelly _hello, Dean_ had set Dean's heart pounding and his mind to racing, trying to think of who would do this, who would be trying to fool him, who would be using his dead best friend's voice against him. "It's me, Dean, I swear, I don't know how, but I'm alive.")

Cas doesn't move either—stands as still as Dean, with his jaw trembling and his blue eyes wet and a strange mixture of apprehension and relief playing over his face.

So it's Sam who moves, finally. Sam takes three huge Sasquatch-sized strides forward, his eyes huge with shock and disbelief. He pulls to a halt just short of Cas, up on the tips of his toes as if it's an effort of will to hold himself back, and stammers, "Cas, is it really—is it you?"

Cas smiles then, a soft, warm expression, a little tired, like Cas's smiles so often are, but no less sincere for all that—and so utterly _Cas_ that any doubts Dean might have had as to the authenticity of the angel in front of him, if he were in a state to be forming coherent doubts, dissipate like smoke. "It's me, Sam."

"Oh, my God," Sam breathes, and wraps Cas in a hug.

Dean can remember a time when Cas would have stood rigidly in place, his hands at his sides until the hug was over. Now, Dean watches Cas close his eyes and lean into it, tucking his face into Sam's shoulder, bringing his hands up to rest against Sam's back.

 _He's alive_ , a part of Dean's mind is trying to process. _How_ , another part of his mind is thinking. A third part isn't thinking anything that can be put into words.

He doesn't realized he's moved until he blinks and he's suddenly standing right beside them, close enough to count Cas's eyelashes by the streetlight, close enough to hear Sam's breath hitch before his brother lets go of the angel.

Cas opens his eyes and looks at Dean.

"Hello, Dean," he says.

"You—" says Dean. His voice catches, breaks. He tries again. "You—"

Cas swallows. He lowers his gaze. "I know you must be angry," he says unsteadily, "and I'm sorry, Dean."

Dean blinks. This isn't what he was expecting to hear.

Cas keeps going. "I was reckless. I rushed in half-cocked, as you would say—I went off on my own, and I didn't trust the plan, and I didn't trust _you_ , and I messed up, like I always do, I _failed_ , and I'm sorry, and—" He swallows again, darts a quick look at Dean's face. "—I hope you can forgive me, Dean."

"Son of a—what, you think I'm _mad_ at you?"

Cas looks up at Dean. His eyelashes are glittering. "Aren't you?"

"Goddammit," Dean says. He reaches forward, grabs Cas by the arm. He means to drag him forward, into a hug, but he loses his nerve and just stands there like an idiot, clutching Cas's sleeve. "I'm not—I'm not fucking mad at you, Cas, I'm—" He scrabbles for the words. "I just—are you—are you back, man?"

Understanding flickers across Cas's face.

"I'm back," he confirms, and pulls Dean into his arms.

 _He's alive_ , Dean thinks. _He's—he's really—_

"I'm back," Cas repeats in a whisper. Reconfirming it, probably because he knows Dean needs to hear it twice. Dean puts his arms around Cas, feels the solidity of Cas under his palms. He hangs on and drags in a shaky breath. The fabric of Cas's coat—where the hell did Cas get a new coat?—is cold under his chin and he can smell prairie grass and spent lightning. Cas's hair tickles the side of his face.

"Don't," Dean starts, and has to pause and swallow around the sharp lump in his throat. He tightens his grip on Cas so Cas doesn't misunderstand and pull away. "Don't—don't ever do that again, man."

Cas chuckles, low in his throat. Dean feels the sound in his shoulders, in his skull. "Alright," says Cas softly in his ear. He lets go of Dean, but he doesn't step back. They stand close together in the alleyway, and Dean thinks about reaching out and grabbing Cas's sleeve again. He resists the temptation for all of about a minute, and then he gives in and just does it. Just to feel that it's real. That it's there. That Cas is there.

"Sam?" says Cas, concerned lines appearing on his forehead suddenly, and Dean looks over and realizes that Sam is standing with his hands in his pockets and his gaze trained halfway up the side of the nearest building. His face is streaked with tears.

"Sam?" Cas turns, and does with ease what Dean had had to wrestle with—reaches out and catches a fold of Sam's sleeve. "What's wrong?"

Sam turns his head to face them again, his mouth twisting in a wry smile, his gaze low, now, trained on the ground. "Nothing. Just—" He sniffs, swipes his free arm quickly across his eyes. "We thought you were dead, Cas. For good, this time. You know?"

Dean sees through the past few weeks, then—sees through what he'd been too wrapped up in his own despair to question. Sees through the forced cheer and the fixation on Jack, the manic hope and the impervious calm and the freaking beer for breakfast. It hadn't been just him Sam was trying to help, then.

It makes sense, Dean supposes. Sam isn't really any better at dealing with grief than Dean—he just hides it better.

Well enough to fool Dean, apparently. When Dean isn't bothering to look.

"I'm sorry, Sammy," he says quietly. Sam blinks at him.

"What? No, Dean, it's okay, you didn't do anything—"

"No," says Dean, "I didn't. And I'm sorry for that. We should've, _I_ should've—" He grimaces. Cas is looking from him to Sam like someone watching a tennis match. "We should've talked about it. More."

Sam sighs. "No, that's on me, too. I'm sorry, I was so focused on making everything normal—but it _wasn't_ normal, I shouldn't have—" Now it's Sam's turn to grimace. "I'm sorry for the strip club."

"Strip club?" says Cas curiously.

Dean drops his hand from Cas's sleeve. His fingers brush against Cas's on the way down and something flutters in the base of his chest: joy, hope, relief, disbelief, he isn't sure what.

Cas is studying him, his gaze all squinty and intent like it always is. Dean's heart swells; he feels as if missing pieces are being slotted back into his life. Not all of them, but a lot of them.

"Did something go wrong at a strip club?" Cas asks.

Dean pats him on the shoulder."Things were rough without you, buddy."

***

They're in the car, all three of them, like it should be, and the Impala is eating up the miles to the Bunker.

"So you just... _annoyed_ this thing until it sent you back to Earth?" says Dean disbelievingly.

"I suppose so," says Cas thoughtfully. "It really wanted to sleep."

"So that's it?" says Sam. He twists in the passenger seat to look at Cas. "It just...let you go?"

Cas frowns in thought. "I think it really just wanted me gone, or quiet. And...I wouldn't stay quiet, so it let me go. It got what it wanted. I got what I wanted."

Dean whistles. Trust Cas to talk a being older than _God_ into plunking him back to Earth, in his old vessel no less.

"I didn't really do much," Cas is saying. "It could easily have destroyed me, I had very little to work with in that place. I was just...persistent."

"Well, thanks," says Dean. "For...persisting. You know."

Cas looks at him quizzically through the rear-view mirror.

"Dean means, thanks for getting back," says Sam quietly. "Thanks for not giving up on us. For fighting."

Cas shrugs. Dean watches him in the mirror. "I was there in the first place because of my own foolhardiness. I'm sorry to have caused you two pain." He laughs a little sadly. "After all my talk, when we were chasing down Kelly, of wanting to come back with a win for you...and then. Well." He shrugs again. "I really overreached with all that, didn't I?'

"Cas, listen," Dean starts, but Cas shakes his head.

"I'll keep trying, Dean," he says earnestly. He leans forward, puts his hands on the back of the driver's seat.

"Cas—"

"I can't—hopefully, I can't mess up _too_ much worse than I already have, so maybe—"

"You coming back _is_ the goddamn win, idiot," says Dean.

Cas opens his mouth. Closes it. "I don't know if—"

"No, it is. _You_ are. And we needed a win, man, we really did. We needed you. So—yeah. Thanks for—getting back to us."

Cas drops his eyes, but a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. "It's good," he says softly. He shifts a little and Dean feels the touch of Cas's fingers against his shoulder, a steady pressure. "It's good to be back. With you. I missed—this. You. Both of you."

"We missed you too, Cas," says Sam.

Dean can feel his brother's joy, a hard, bright thing radiating from the passenger seat, and he revels in the warmth of it, of that and of Cas's quiet smile, of Cas's hand on his shoulder, of Cas's _presence_ , in the back seat, solid, weighty, real, _alive_. He puts his foot down harder on the accelerator, and drives his family home.


End file.
